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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26474281">Icarus, and the Fire</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface'>thatsrightdollface</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Komahina Secret Exchange 2020, M/M, Mentions of Ritual Sacrifice, Non-Graphic Violence, References to Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore, Religious Imagery &amp; Symbolism, Self-Deprecating/Self-Destructive Thoughts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:01:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,430</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26474281</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>How did Nagito Komaeda find himself here, watching the flames?  Such impossible luck, huh?</p>
<p>This was written for the Komahina Secret Exchange on tumblr, as a gift for B3thanie4/tumblr user bebexox4.  It's for the prompt, "Chapter 5 Angst with happy post game ending (I hate sad endings :( )," but arguably contains elements of the prompt, "Post-game romantic confessions under moonlight," too.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>71</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Icarus, and the Fire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/B3thanie4/gifts">B3thanie4</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi!!!  :D  Here's the second gift I made for the summer 2020 Komahina Secret Exchange season -- I had a lot of fun with it.  Thanks for reading!!!  </p>
<p>I hope the world is being kind to you!!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Just before Nagito Komaeda died, the fire reaching for him seemed ruinously golden, bright and hot as the sun, and he heard Hajime Hinata’s voice from the door of the plushie factory.  Of course his killing game classmates would get the fire extinguisher grenades before the flames properly ate at Nagito’s skin, catching on the ragged edges of his coat.  Nibbling at his hair.  Of course.  The fire wasn’t what was supposed to kill him, technically, according to the plan he’d dreamt up like a prayer, falling to his dirty knees at Hope’s feet.  This was an offering.</p>
<p>Nagito knew he was going to die here, however it happened, and he only had a few breaths left.  They were smothered, horrible breaths, too, and the world smelled like so much burning fabric.  Nagito’s mind was smoke and pain, pain like static, straining to hear Hajime’s voice before the end.  Why Hajime Hinata?  He was the enemy; he was a Remnant of Despair; he was the only one of Nagito’s killing game classmates he absolutely knew he couldn’t trust.  Hajime had been the sole survivor when the entire talentless Hope’s Peak Academy Reserve Course was lost...  a different ritual offering, you know, but this time to the stiletto-heeled, snickering Goddess of Despair.  Junko Enoshima.  Nagito saw Hope as something greater than all things...  something to make this whole world worth it...  and he was offering himself to Hope, just now.  This was different.  This was what he’d decided — no, what he <em>knew</em> — had to be done.</p>
<p>It was terrible luck to be caught in Junko Enoshima’s killing game...  truly, just awful.  But it was an amazing opportunity, too.  From despair came Hope, after all — that’s what Nagito had been preaching to everybody here on Jabberwock Island, and that’s what he had to believe with his whole soul or else how could he have ever made it this far?  Hah.  It was simple, really.  One of Nagito’s classmates was a member of the Future Foundation, even if they didn’t realize it yet, and only that one person among them all hadn’t become one of Junko Enoshima’s monsters.  And so, you see?  It was wonderful luck, now, that Nagito could save that single near-holy classmate, even if it meant he and everything else on this island went up in flames.  Hajime Hinata, too.  Even if it meant this might be one of the last times Hajime spoke outside of a class trial — with Nagito straining to listen, even if he willed himself not to, even if he knew he shouldn’t want to hear.</p>
<p>Hajime’s laughter, self-conscious chuckles in the back of his throat.  Hajime’s indignant, baffled exclamations, trying to keep the peace among their group...  Hajime’s earnest frustration, struggling to understand Nagito even when everyone else they knew here had given up.  Hajime’s voice could get so stumbling and soft, when he and Nagito were reading together on the beach; Hajime had ridden the island’s rollercoaster with some of their classmates a while back, and Nagito had been able to pick his whooping scream out from everybody else’s.  He’d listened for it, then, too.  </p>
<p>It had been wonderful luck to meet Hajime Hinata.  Nagito would have told you that from the first time they spoke.  Hajime was earnest and warm, and it had been easy to walk beside him.  They could slide together almost like friends, at first, before the killing game really got going.  Unspeakable, wasn’t it, that someone would actually want a friend like Nagito Komaeda?  And yet, it had been true: Hajime’s eyes had relaxed a little, finding him, and Nagito had felt his lips curl up into a soft smile even when he had no right to it.</p>
<p>It didn’t really feel like that long ago, with Hajime shaking even more sand out of his shoes and Nagito frantically scanning his mind for interesting things they could talk about.  Sometimes Nagito would ramble on sing-song tangents for way longer than he’d meant to, and he truly believed Hajime tried to hear every word.  That was a new feeling.  There was no one else Nagito would have wanted squeezing his hand as he lay limp in yet another hospital bed, sick with the killing game’s Despair Disease.  Nagito’s hand would have been sweat-sticky and feverish, but maybe if he’d understood...  maybe if he’d stayed...  Hajime wouldn’t have minded.  He could’ve washed his own hands afterwards, even, and then just sat on a chair by Nagito’s bed if he was alright with that.  Would he have been alright with that?</p>
<p>Things had changed, even before Nagito reached the Final Death Room and the wicked truths inside.  Who Hajime was.  The Hope’s Peak Reserve Course.  All that.  Hajime’s eyes were tired and beseeching, watching Nagito like he might be important to him, sure, but also like he might slide a knife out of his sleeve at any second.  They hadn’t understood each other yet, but even so it had been one of Nagito’s luckiest moments, falling into step beside Hajime Hinata.  And so, logically, it had been one of Nagito’s unluckiest moments when he realized Hajime wasn’t the one he would have to save.  </p>
<p>Hajime had tried to confess to the “crime” of belonging to the Future Foundation, because he thought maybe it would save their friends’ lives.  Nagito had said he wished he could believe him, and that thought was grabbing at him, even now, hot against his skin as the flames. <em> What if Hajime could be kept safe? </em> What if Hajime could stand for Hope, too, and they might both have statues set up somewhere grand, reborn in beatific metals?  Reborn from fire.  But of course, Nagito’s luck wouldn’t let him stay close to someone like Hajime, someone who made him feel solid and nearly steady inside.  Fortune and tragedy were two sides of the same coin: Nagito had always known that.  He was the Ultimate Lucky Student, after all, and his luck was ridiculous.  His luck was easy to see as something mythic, from time to time, when it made him feel as helpless as he felt just now.  </p>
<p>Let’s say Nagito’s luck was like the story of Icarus, this time.  Whenever he got too happy — whenever he wandered endlessly high, too close to the sun — of course his wax wings would melt, next, and he could do nothing but fall.  </p>
<p>Nagito had let himself fall in love with the hope sleeping inside Hajime Hinata, and now he would die with ash in his hair, cheeks sticky with tears.  Of course he’d taped over his mouth so no one could hear him scream when it happened.  Whatever Nagito’s last words would have been, no one could hear them.  If Hajime was the sun — just as good luck was the sun, shall we say? — Nagito had wax dripping down his back in oily bubbling rivers, now.  He should have known...  no, he had always known...  this was the most he could have hoped for.  Nagito was a stepping stone for Hope.  Wasn’t that enough?  </p>
<p>And so why was he listening for Hajime Hinata’s voice, up until the end of things, even as he clutched that final-death spear of his so tight, even as he reminded himself this would all be worth it soon?  Alright then.  And so what if he was?  What next?  Maybe the Ultimate Lucky Student was like Icarus again, enjoying the sunlight on his skin even once the fall had already begun, and the world below was hurtling closer all the time.    </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Later.</p>
<p>Much later.</p>
<p>Nagito Komaeda was sitting by a bonfire, and tasting smoke in the air again.  Everything was different, this time, of course.  The fire was crackling golden, true, but it was cozy in the dark of a starstruck Jabberwock Island night, and if Nagito fell back there was someone close enough to catch him.  No killing game plots, no burning plushie factory curtains.  Hajime Hinata was near enough that Nagito could feel the sand rustle beneath them both as he shifted, gesturing with his hands as he spoke to their classmates.  No, not their classmates — they were the former Remnants of Despair, all of them left behind, and they hadn’t been a “class” in a long time.  Their “friends,” then?  Nagito was huddled in close, part of the circle, and when he’d hung back at the edge of things too long it had been Hajime who pulled him in.  Hajime, with a soft hand on his back.  Hajime, who murmured, “Sit by me?” into the curve of Nagito’s cheek, breath against his neck.  </p>
<p>And so Nagito was here, watching the other former Remnants of Despair burn campfire wood by the edge of the sea.  The sparks drifting over that dark water reminded him of faraway fireworks, and... despite everything that had happened...  it <em>did</em> feel like they should be celebrating.  Nagito and his teammates had their minds back, and they belonged to each other so much more completely than they had ever belonged to despair.  (Or, so Hajime had told them during one of those rallying pep talks of his — he’d been looking straight into Nagito’s eyes as he said that part, and Nagito had swallowed hard.  Aching to believe him.)</p>
<p>The Remnants of Despair had helped the Future Foundation put an end to a despair-inducing mind control video not too long ago, and then they’d come back here, to where their second chances began.  It had all been so much to wrap their heads around...  the killing game being a simulation, for one, and all of them being criminals the Ultimate Hope was defying his higher-ups to rehabilitate.  The only Future Foundation member hidden among them had been an AI, after all, a shadow of their friend who had died at despair’s hand so long ago.  But the Ultimate Hope... Makoto Naegi...  believed in all of them, and Nagito had been able to shake his hand, once.  It had been broad and warm, so different than Nagito’s own pale spindly fingers, crisscrossed with scars his relentless luck left behind.  </p>
<p>The Ultimate Hope had asked why Nagito’s hand was so sticky; the Ultimate Hope had fought to keep the people Nagito tried to execute for Hope’s sake kicking around in the world.  The Ultimate Hope shared his title with Hajime Hinata, now, some people said.  That had been a lot to try and comprehend, too...  that Hajime, reinvented with every talent under the sun, godlike and impossible, could still be so much like he was before.  It was oddly comforting, smelling his cheap shampoo, imagining reaching out to play with his spiky hair.  They could sit in silence, together, and Nagito could almost forget there was no reason Hajime should ever want to spend time with him.  It had been Hajime who’d fought to piece Nagito’s brain back together after the simulation...  it had been Hajime who refused to leave him behind, and built him a mechanical arm to replace the one that was... ah...  gone, now.  Looking at Hajime for too long was like staring into the sun, nowadays: it burned Nagito’s eyes worse than the salt wind over the ocean.  But that mostly meant Nagito had something to say to him...  that mostly meant Nagito might cry, if he thought too hard about what it would have been like if his plan had gone exactly as he thought it needed to go. </p>
<p>“I’m glad you aren’t dead, Hajime Hinata,” might have been a good place to start.  “Seeing you work for Hope’s sake is amazing, but even if you weren’t — even if you were still a talentless nobody from the Reserve Course — I’m so glad I was wrong and <em>you aren’t dead</em>.”</p>
<p>It could’ve been Hajime already knew those words were waiting on the tip of Nagito’s tongue.  He kept offering his hand, after all, and now... sitting by a bonfire on Jabberwock Island, listening to his friends work through where they’d have to go next...  he rubbed Nagito’s shoulder a bit and offered him an exhausted, resolute smile.  They couldn’t stay here long, given that it was only a matter of time before people tracked their boat — given that it was only a matter of time before they were caught, and maybe locked away, maybe killed.  Hajime had vowed to lead the Remnants of Despair around the world, spurring society on towards Hope.  They needed a battle strategy, for something like that.  They needed outrageous, harebrained schemes, kinda like the ones Nagito had come up with during the killing game.  They were going to make something near-holy of themselves yet. </p>
<p>But when Hajime grinned at him, Nagito leaned in closer...  not for Hope’s sake at all, really.  Nagito imagined Icarus again, flying towards the sun even though he knew what could happen.  Nagito dangled on the brink of happiness, shuffling his feet against the edge of the cliff and deciding to let himself feel.  He offered Hajime his own hand, this time, and their fingers twined together against the sand.  Palm trees swayed in a gentle wind; the Ultimate Musician interrupted this planning session to try and start up a campfire sing-along. </p>
<p>“You should be careful, you know,” Nagito whispered, his voice starting up even though he tried to hold it back.  Even though it would ruin this moment, under so many stars, with salty wind in his hair and firelight catching in Hajime’s mismatched eyes.  Red and green, Ultimate Hope and useless Reserve Course student.  “If you let me like you too much, it’ll be dangerous.  My luck...  you know who I am, Hajime.”</p>
<p>You know what I almost did to you...  what I was willing to do to everyone.  You know, you know, you know.  And so why?</p>
<p>Hajime sighed.  He reached out so slowly and brushed a little sand off Nagito’s cheek, there where all the rest of their classmates... friends...  could see them, if they managed to glance away from this sing-along train wreck long enough.  “Yeah, I know who you are,” Hajime said.  And that was all.  He said it in the same sort of voice someone else might have said, “I love you,” Nagito thought. </p>
<p>Maybe it was Hajime who was Icarus after all, in this scenario — maybe they flew towards each other, and if they fell together it would be enough to break the fall.  Soft wax wings and golden light.  Sand and ocean and a million places left to go. </p>
<p>Hajime didn’t pull his hand away, not for a while.  He explained that his fingers had fallen asleep, when he finally did. </p>
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